BBC news using the phrase "broken home"

[IsitaHatOrACat]

Really? Really? Whilst I'm not overly interested to know about this man's drug fuelled years, the description of him coming from a "broken home" has infuriated me.
As a single parent to a 15 year old, I can confirm that there us nothing whatsoever "broken" about our home or small family.
I really thought we had moved on from this type of shaming of single parent families
Seriously BBC, do better.

BBC News - Heavy hangs the crown - sadness at Wiggins' troubles
www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/articles/c23mv42m2lmo

But we can’t separate language and power. It’s those with power who decide what those without power are called and known as. Take ‘minority groups’ and the push to change the term to ‘minoritised groups’. No one thinks of themselves as a minority, it is a term which is ‘done to’ a certain group of people. The term ‘minority group’ diminishes and stigmatises those who belong to the group. It is the same with the term ‘broken home’- broken according to who? Who is doing the naming? Who is being consulted about this? What demographic are they from? Boris Johnson’s older children come from a broken home, but you would never hear them being referred to as such. Yet penniless addict Bradley Wiggins is from a broken home.

This in spades. They wouldn't write anything (or say anything) at all, ever, if they were worried about offending every Tom, Dick, and Shirley!

As pps have said, this person did come from a broken home - a childhood that was broken and fractured and tumultuous.

YABU @IsitaHatOrACat but as someone who has been married once - over 30 years ago - and still married to the same man, with 2 DC by the same man, I have to say I don't see a single parent family (and there a few in my village) and think 'oooh broken home!' I just see a single parent (usually single mum) family and walk on by....

Tell you the truth I don't think anything. Nothing enters my head. Single parent households, and couples with stepchildren (as well as their own biological ones,) and really common. More common than my type (nuclear family.)

So I think you're getting your panties in a bunch, and getting angry for very little OP, and sound easily offended and overly sensitive. Very few people think of you - and people like you (single mums with children in a stable environment) as being a 'broken home.' Have people been mean to you in real life, and said unpleasant things about you being a single mum? Is that why you find this so triggering?

.

But it IS accurate. Their parents broke up and the kids are raised having to deal with the fallout of the breakup.

People kid themselves that kids are resilient and all that bullshit, to justify the parents’ poor choices. The fact is that human beings statistically do far better when raised in two parent homes.

If people don’t want to be referred to as broken, they should be a LOT more careful, prudent and thoughtful in their choices of partners and their reproductive choices.

I would take the term broken home to mean a dysfunctional home. It doens't necessarily say anything about how many parents make up the home.

@LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnywaylike an actual child protection social worker said upthread.
It is not about us being offended.
It is about women (usually) staying in abusive relationships to avoid their children being from a ‘broken home’. And using those exact words.

You’re a bit clueless if you don’t recognise how loaded the term is and the impact it has on how women view their children’s future should they leave abusive relationships.
We want women to feel empowered to leave and ‘broken home’ does the opposite. It tells people that you leave, even for your own child’s safety and well-being, your home is broken and you have failed. Your child is now broken too.

@TheHerboristeif you take poverty out of it, children in single parent households fare pretty much the same as those with two parents, there’s a chapter on this in Freakenomics.

I can understand your thinking about this phrase. Since the person in question grew up with an absent alcoholic father, the reporter could have used different words like a difficult childhood.

Years ago when I was collecting my son at nursery a grandmother who was collecting her grandchildren told me they came from a dysfunctional family. It has jarred with me ever since that her daughter who was separated was referenced by her own parent in that way.

Language evolves and broken homes are not the same as separated or single parent families. As you say sometimes the broken home is best for the children and spouse.

Careful, you'll be labelled "woke" by the hard of thinking! 😅

Do you really have such limited life experience that you don’t know that many children are relieved and sometimes very happy when their fathers leave?

That for many children a loving one parent household represents nothing but safety, comfort and peace?

Are you so fortunate to be totally oblivious to the fact not every family has a loving mummy and Daddy? And many have violent fathers that only bring misery, and their children grow to despise them, and would be delighted if they left.

You seem to have a very rose tinted idea of family from the 1940s that bears no resemblance to reality.

I use this term, it describes my childhood, nothing wrong with the term it describes a fact🤔

No, that’s not the finding of more recent studies.

If people would be more discriminating in their choice of mate, the kids wouldn’t be relieved when Daddy moves out. That’s failure on an epic level. Broken homes aren’t inevitable, they are the result of very poor choices.

I agree with you Op, it's a horrible phrase.

I left my ExH when the kids were 11 & 9. I had been the perfect wife for 20 years, but it came to light that he had cheated on me for our entire relationship with 10+ women. He had also had sex with my best friend. He was also low level violent (pushing, kicking).

I tried to give my kids the best life I could. I luckily had enough equity to buy a smaller, but still lovely home. I married a good guy. I supported my kids through Uni and they both have degrees and professional careers.

But according to many, they come from a "broken home". It doesn't feel like a label I deserve, as I didn't do anything wrong. In fact when I hear it, it makes me wonder whether I should have just stayed and put up with everything. So I agree, the stigma must make some women stay put, even when they should really leave.

Ninnies who would keep their kids in an abusive situation because of someone else’s turn of phrase aren’t fit parents to begin with. Regardless of how journalists express themselves.

I disagree. People change when they are facing parenthood. Some are triggered by childhood trauma, others find the responsibility too much. Maybe there is disability or other challenges. Most relationships start out from a place of equality, contentment and love. Sadly you can’t plan life/reactions/uncertainty.

Do you really imagine women choose violent thugs for life companions? Or do you think over time the mask drops, and things change. Or circumstances change and therefore the dynamics.

Agreed. He comes across as a bit of a dick tbh

I totally agree with you. My dh is from a home where his parents split up when he was a child & they both went on to have several more relationships & children.

They're CONVINCED that these choices have not negatively impacted their original children. The children would say otherwise & the choices the children have made in relationships also plays this out. All have failed marriages / relationships & children with more than one partner & none of them are in relationships with the other parent of their children.

Apart from dh. We're married a long time & he's worked very hard, including therapy at various times to help him navigate things that got thrown up as our dc grew up. He was worried about being able to maintain a marriage & raise a child in a two parent house - it was his goal & his fear. He's really really tackled it head on & our dc has had a fantastic father as a result.

My mil is willfully oblivious. She 100% pursued her own happiness over that of her children. I don't dislike her. She's a kind hearted person in her own way but in lots of ways she was not a good mother.

All of her 6 children have paid a price for her choices. She cannot/ will not see that.

He does come from a broken home, as his parents got divorced.

Royalty are not excluded.

The better term would be "separated home"

Feel free to link to these studies.

People kid themselves that kids are resilient and all that bullshit, to justify the parents’ poor choices

So, can I ask you : when I found out that my husband had been sleeping with 10+ other women, had tried to sleep with my Mum and Sister, had in fact slept with my best friend, AND was violent to me when challenged - did I make a poor choice to leave him? I deliberated for 4 years. Told him I'd stay if he stopped doing these things, but he carried on. How is any of that my fault or a poor choice of mine? Serious question.

And in case it's relevant, he wasn't like this before we married (so no warning) and we had sex all the time (so it wasn't a case of him getting none at home).

I'm surprised by the responses. "Broken home" is a way of referring specially to a family where the parents are divorced, and it's a problematic term because it implies that a two parent household is a whole home, and a single parent household is a broken home. This is a problem because it stigmatises divorce while obscuring problems that happen within a family where parents are married to each other.

Whether the family of the man on question is in other ways "broken" is neither here not there. The term broken home refers to the state of being the child of separated parents.

Do you know what's interesting as well? My parents stayed together, but hated each other. Every weekend was filled with drink, fights and threats of violence. Is that a broken home? Apparently not, but I'm 55 now and have never forgotten it.

(Dad's fault, not my Mum's who in fairness was always trying to calm him down)

Come on up and collect your award for choosing a partner who didn't decide to start treating you like shit when you got pregnant. Congratulations. You know nothing.

I'm sorry, did you just refer to the victims of domestic abuse as "ninnies"?

Strangely enough men don’t tend to come with warning stickers on their heads saying serial adulterer or violent when stressed!